Lawmakers tread cautiously toward solution to heroin problem

Jun. 23, 2013

Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber / Wm. Glasheen/The Post-Crescent

John Nygren

Andre Jacque

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Dave Fraser was so fed up seeing the rampant use of hard drugs by his friends and acquaintances in Sheboygan that he packed up his things, including a flower shop business, and moved to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Last week, he said, one of his buddies died of a heroin overdose in Menominee, Mich.

“It’s just as bad here, heroin, people crushing pills and snorting or injecting,” Fraser said. “I guess I don’t know what to do. This last week, I’ve been reaching out to anybody who’ll listen.”

Fraser thinks special legislation is needed to combat the heroin problem, which the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team examined in a special report last Sunday and Monday.

Responding to the stories, a handful of Wisconsin lawmakers agreed that some legislation probably is needed to address the issue. But they want to move cautiously.

“It’s tough to say there needs to be a government solution to every problem, and it’s certainly already illegal,” Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, said. Still, “I think there’s a pretty broad desire to address the problem. We’re trying to find the best way to do that, and I don’t think we’ve got our arms around it yet.”

The Gannett Wisconsin Media stories demonstrated the increase of heroin addiction statewide. “Deadly Doses” revealed heroin overdose deaths rose 50 percent in Wisconsin last year to at least 199 as the drug spread from the inner city to suburbs and rural areas.

The stories showed heroin-related arrests and drug seizures have surged in recent years, and that an anti-overdose drug helped save thousands of users from potentially fatal overdoses in 2012 alone.

In response to the reporting, the Sheboygan-based Acuity insurance firm announced Tuesday it will contribute $100,000 to support efforts in the Sheboygan County area to tackle the heroin problem.

Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Allouez, and Jacque have been working on a program included in the budget passed last week by the Assembly and Senate that would set up a six-member task force in each of the state’s 72 counties to hash out ideas to combat heroin and other drugs. The plan also calls for a $20 surcharge to be added to each criminal conviction in the state, to help pay for existing drug prevention programs.

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Heroin addiction is an issue particularly close to the heart for Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette. His county led the state from 2008 to 2012 in per capita seizures of heroin by police. And more directly, Nygren said his daughter has a heroin addiction and is serving prison time.

“When she first told me about it, I always felt heroin was for losers living in the dark alleys, the homeless,” Nygren said. “A lot of the girls who use — and a lot of them are girls — are pretty girls, good students. This is not the addiction of the 1960s and 1970s that we thought.”

But even Nygren sees a need for legislators to proceed with caution.

The biennial budget, awaiting Gov. Scott Walker’s signature, contains $2.5 million to pay for drug treatment alternatives, which is a 150 percent increase in such spending from the current budget.

“A 150 percent increase is, well, not being cheap. But if it’s found to be widespread effective, it’ll probably need to be five times that,” Nygren said.

The state budget also puts $1 million toward establishing drug courts in some of the state’s smaller and rural counties, he said. “We think drug courts have been successful.”

Democrats are no more eager than Republicans to charge ahead at heroin without getting a better understanding of the problem, said Penny Bernard Schaber, D-Appleton. It’s clear that just jailing addicts isn’t doing the job and that the focus needs to be elsewhere, but even effective solutions can come with their own set of new problems, she said.

“It’s difficult addressing these social issues in the Legislature,” Bernard Schaber said. “Right now, we need to be getting information and talking to everybody on the ground, the people with addictions, law enforcement.”

The heroin problem itself, in a way, is a by-product of legislative action, Bernard Schaber said.

“We tried to address prescription drug concerns, and we did create and implement a prescription drug monitoring system, so if a person is going from store to store or doctor to doctor to get drugs, we’re able to track that,” she said.

However, plugging the path to easy, illicit prescription drugs drove opiate addicts to find another way to get their highs, and many turned to heroin, the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team found.

Legislators are talking about the problem, and there almost certainly will be initiatives forthcoming, Bernard Schaber said.

“We want to make sure the money we’re spending up front saves money in the long run,” she said. “It’s horrible to lose these young people that could have been productive their whole lives, and it might have to be community-based treatment programs. There has to be a way to prevent these overdoses.”